Useful Information

Travelling in Spain

It is always interesting to travel in the country where you are doing your Erasmus year. Here you have the different means of transportation to travel in Spain.

The bus

The majority of the cities are well served by the line bus. All the provinces are linked to Madrid. It is often the cheapest way to travel, and a lot of Spanish use it, regardless their age. You need to know that it is not the more comfortable means of transportation and that the run can take a lot of time if you want to go in the other side of Spain.

The most famous company for the biggest run is Alsa, it has interesting prices. The search website Movelia groups together the majority of the companies, it is the easiest way to buy your tickets. You can also go directly into the bus station of your city. Offices are normally opened until late, around 10 pm, but it depends on the city where you are. Don't forget that earlier you will reserve your ticket, cheaper it will be.

The train

Since there are high-speed trains, railway lines are more important and fast. For instance, you can travel from Valencia to Madrid in only 1, 30 hour ! But those lines are normally very expensive.

As young people between 14 and 25 years old,you can benefit from the Carnet joven. With this card you can have 20% of reductions on almost all the travels. Valid during two years, it price can vary functions of where you buy it. You can also benefit from reductions in theater, cinema, shops, etc. The Renfe is a website where you can buy train tickets and have more informations.

The car

The road network is well developped, with more than 16 000 kilometres of fast lane and motorway. If the car is full it can be more interesting than the others means of transportation, and you have more flexibily. However, if you are travelling alone, motorway and gasoline prices are expensive.

You can rent a car too. The website Reservas de coches, rents cars for reasonable prices and they have huge car choices.

Carpool is another option, but it doesn't work as well as in France for example. However, the website Comuto.es develops itself more and more and prices are cheap.

The plane

The biggest cities in Spain are well linked by the flight path regularly and daily. Take the plane is expansive, or you have to take your ticket a long time ago. It can be usefull if you want to go on the other side of Spain and you just have one week-end. You need to consider that, as in the UK, airports are always far away the city center and you need to take the bus, the train or tha taxi, which add more money and time for your travel.

The website AENA (Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea) will help you if you want to know more about air trafic in Spain. You can reserve your tickets on the websiteIberia, the most famous Spanish company, or on research websites as Vuelos baratos, where you can compare prices in different companies. You can also search in the low cost websites, as Vueling or Ryanair.